Hydrocarbons are widespread in the environment,
but because of the massive utilization of petroleum
products, they are nowadays strongly involved in environmental
pollution. Bioremediation is the obliging
technology for the treatment of hydrocarbon-contaminated
sites. Therefore, to investigate the potential of
petrochemical hydrocarbon (HC)-degrading indigenous
microorganisms in wastewater samples collected from
Fajr petrochemical wastewater treatment plants, a strain
of Acinetobacterbaumannii was isolated from this
hydrocarbon-contaminated wastewater and examined for
its ability to utilize hexadecane. This strain was capable
to grow on n-hexadecane as the sole source of carbon
and energy. The ability of the isolate to degrade nhexadecane
was assessed by growth assays and gas
chromatography/mass spectrometry analysis. Using GC
analysis, it was shown that the strain KSS1060 was able
to degrade 62 % of n-hexadecane within 6 days, which
mostly (51.6 %) occurred within the first 24 h. Identification
of this hexadecane-degrader bacterium was carried
out using 16S rDNA sequence analysis. Additionally,
characterization of chemical composition of wastewater
samples by the use of gas chromatography/mass spectrometry
analysis indicated the presence of Hexanal,
Benzene methanol, Indanol, 1,2-benzenedicarboxylic acid
diethyl ester, diisobutyl phthalate, and Phenol,4,4'-(1-
methylethylidene) in the major constituents of wastewater.
In conclusion, this study can focus on more costefficient
applications of native bacterial strains for the
large-scale biodegradation of wastewater samples from
petrochemical plant in industry, where it causes disturbing
problems due to its harmful effects on different
organisms and human beings.